Mike Pence vice presidential campaign, 2016/Constitution

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Mike Pence
Republican vice presidential nominee
Running mate: Donald Trump

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This page was current as of the 2016 election.

See what Mike Pence and the 2016 Republican Party Platform said about Constitutional rights.

Pence on Constitutional rights

First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution

After signing the Religious Freedom Restoration Act Clarification Bill on April 2, 2015, Mike Pence said, "Last weekend I called upon the Indiana General Assembly to clarify that this new judicial standard would not create a license to discriminate or to deny services to any individual as its critics have alleged. I am grateful for the efforts of legislators, business and other community leaders who came together to forge this clarifying language in the law. Hoosiers deserve to know, that even with this legislation, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act enhances protections for every church, non-profit religious organization or society, religious school, rabbi, priest, preacher, minister or pastor in the review of government action where their religious liberty is infringed. The law also enhances protection in religious liberty cases for groups of individuals and businesses in conscience decisions that do not involve provision of goods and services, employment and housing. ...There will be some who think this legislation goes too far and some who think it does not go far enough, but as governor I must always put the interest of our state first and ask myself every day, ‘What is best for Indiana?’ I believe resolving this controversy and making clear that every person feels welcome and respected in our state is best for Indiana. Our state is rightly celebrated for our pro-business environment, and we enjoy an international reputation for the hospitality, generosity, tolerance and kindness of our people. Hoosier hospitality is not a slogan; it is our way of life. Now that this is behind us, let’s move forward together with a renewed commitment to the civility and respect that make this state great."^[1] For Pence's full statement, please click here.

Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution

Mike Pence co-sponsored HR 822—the National Right-to-Carry Reciprocity Act of 2011—which proposed authorizing "a person who is carrying a valid, government-issued identification document containing that person's photograph and a valid permit to carry a concealed firearm in one state, and who is not prohibited from possessing, transporting, shipping, or receiving a firearm under federal law, to possess or carry a concealed handgun (other than a machine gun or destructive device) in another state in accordance with the restrictions of that state."^[2]

In 2005, Pence voted for S 397—the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act—which "Prohibits a qualified civil liability action from being brought in any state or federal court against a manufacturer or seller of a firearm, ammunition, or a component of a firearm that has been shipped or transported in interstate or foreign commerce, or against a trade association of such manufacturers or sellers, for damages, punitive damages, injunctive or declaratory relief, abatement, restitution, fines, penalties, or other relief resulting from the criminal or unlawful misuse of a firearm." It became law on October 26, 2005.^[3]

Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution

During his 2015 CPAC speech, Mike Pence said, "As President Reagan said, it’s important to 'be reminded that the Federal Government did not create the States, the States created the Federal Government.' Our states are not territorial outposts of the federal government. They are the wellspring of our vitality and reform. When we win back the White House and reelect a Republican Congress, let’s make it our aim to permanently reduce the size and scope of the national government by restoring to our states the resources and freedom that are rightfully theirs under the Constitution of the United States!"^[4]

In June 2014, Mike Pence said, "We must demand that renewed Republican leadership… permanently reduce the size and scope of the federal government by restoring to the states and to the people those resources and responsibilities that are rightfully theirs under the Constitution of the United States."^[5]

During the same speech he also said, "The principles of federalism, which I think were punctuated maybe with an exclamation mark in the Tenth Amendment, were alive and well at the time of our nation’s founding. It’s impossible to read the Constitution of the United States without understanding it as a document of a limited federal government that contemplates that there would be those responsibilities and resources–and those functions of government–many of which would be best administered at the state level."^[5]

Read what the 2016 presidential candidates and other vice presidential candidates said about Constitutional rights.

The 2016 Republican Party Platform on the Constitution

“

The First Amendment: Religious Liberty

The Bill of Rights lists religious liberty, with its rights of conscience, as the first freedom to be protected. Religious freedom in the Bill of Rights protects the right of the people to practice their faith in their everyday lives. As George Washington taught, “religion and morality are indispensable supports” to a free society. Similarly, Thomas Jefferson declared that “No provision in our Constitution ought to be dearer to man than that which protects the rights of conscience against the enterprises of the civil authority.” Ongoing attempts to compel individuals, businesses, and institutions of faith to transgress their beliefs are part of a misguided effort to undermine religion and drive it from the public square. As a result, many charitable religious institutions that have demonstrated great success in helping the needy have been barred from receiving government grants and contracts. Government officials threaten religious colleges and universities with massive fines and seek to control their personnel decisions. Places of worship for the first time in our history have reason to fear the loss of tax-exempt status merely for espousing and practicing traditional religious beliefs that have been held across the world for thousands of years, and for almost four centuries in America. We value the right of America’s religious leaders to preach, and Americans to speak freely, according to their faith. Republicans believe the federal government, specifically the IRS, is constitutionally prohibited from policing or censoring speech based on religious convictions or beliefs, and therefore we urge the repeal of the Johnson Amendment.

We pledge to defend the religious beliefs and rights of conscience of all Americans and to safeguard religious institutions against government control. We endorse the First Amendment Defense Act, Republican legislation in the House and Senate which will bar government discrimination against individuals and businesses for acting on the belief that marriage is the union of one man and one woman. This Act would protect the non-profit tax status of faith-based adoption agencies, the accreditation of religious educational institutions, the grants and contracts of faith-based charities and small businesses, and the licensing of religious professions — all of which are under assault by elements of the Democratic Party. We encourage every state to pass similar legislation. We likewise endorse the efforts of Republican state legislators and governors who have defied intimidation from corporations and the media in defending religious liberty. We support laws to confirm the longstanding

American tradition that religious individuals and institutions can educate young people, receive government benefits, and participate in public debates without having to check their religious beliefs at the door.

Our First Amendment rights are not given to us by the government but are rights we inherently possess. The government cannot use subsequent amendments to limit First Amendment rights. The Free Exercise Clause is both an individual and a collective liberty protecting a right to worship God according to the dictates of conscience. Therefore, we strongly support the freedom of Americans to act in accordance with their religious beliefs, not only in their houses of worship, but also in their everyday lives.

We support the right of the people to conduct their businesses in accordance with their religious beliefs and condemn public officials who have proposed boycotts against businesses that support traditional marriage. We pledge to protect those business owners who have been subjected to hate campaigns, threats of violence, and other attempts to deny their civil rights.

We support the public display of the Ten Commandments as a reflection of our history and our country’s Judeo-Christian heritage and further affirm the rights of religious students to engage in voluntary prayer at public school events and to have equal access to school facilities. We assert the First Amendment right of freedom of association for religious, private, service, and youth organizations to set their own membership standards.

The First Amendment: Constitutionally Protected Speech
The rights of citizenship do not stop at the ballot box. Freedom of speech includes the right to devote resources to whatever cause or candidate one supports. We oppose any restrictions or conditions that would discourage citizens from participating in the public square or limit their ability to promote their ideas, such as requiring private organizations to publicly disclose their donors to the government. Limits on political speech serve only to protect the powerful and insulate incumbent officeholders. We support repeal of federal restrictions on political parties in McCain-Feingold, raising or repealing contribution limits, protecting the political speech of advocacy groups, corporations, and labor unions, and protecting political speech on the internet. We likewise call for an end to the so-called Fairness Doctrine, and support free-market approaches to free speech unregulated by government.

We believe the forced funding of political candidates through union dues and other mandatory contributions violates the First Amendment. Just as Americans have a First Amendment right to devote resources to favored candidates or views, they have a First Amendment right not to be forced to individually support individuals or ideologies that they oppose. We agree with Thomas Jefferson that “To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.”

The Second Amendment: Our Right to Keep and Bear Arms
We uphold the right of individuals to keep and bear arms, a natural inalienable right that predates the Constitution and is secured by the Second Amendment. Lawful gun ownership enables Americans to exercise their God-given right of selfdefense for the safety of their homes, their loved ones, and their communities.

We salute the Republican Congress for defending the right to keep and bear arms by preventing the President from installing a new liberal majority on the Supreme Court. The confirmation to the Court of additional anti-gun justices would eviscerate the Second Amendment’s fundamental protections. Already, local officials in the nation’s capital and elsewhere are defying the Court’s decisions upholding an individual right to bear arms as affirmed by the Supreme Court in Heller and McDonald. We support firearm reciprocity legislation to recognize the right of law-abiding Americans to carry firearms to protect themselves and their families in all 50 states. We support constitutional carry statutes and salute the states that have passed them. We oppose ill-conceived laws that would restrict magazine capacity or ban the sale of the most popular and common modern rifle. We also oppose any effort to deprive individuals of their right to keep and bear arms without due process of law.

We condemn frivolous lawsuits against gun manufacturers and the current Administration’s illegal harassment of firearm dealers. We oppose federal licensing or registration of law-abiding gun owners, registration of ammunition, and restoration of the ill-fated Clinton gun ban. We call for a thorough investigation — by a new Republican administration — of the deadly “Fast and Furious” operation perpetrated by Department of Justice officials who approved and allowed illegal sales of guns to known violent criminals.

The Tenth Amendment: Federalism as the Foundation of Personal Liberty
Federalism is a cornerstone of our constitutional system. Every violation of state sovereignty by federal officials is not merely a transgression of one unit of government against another; it is an assault on the liberties of individual Americans. Hence the promise of the Tenth Amendment: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” The Constitution gives the federal government very few powers, and they are specifically enumerated; the states and the people retain authority over all unenumerated powers. In obedience to that principle, we condemn the current Administration’s unconstitutional expansion into areas beyond those specifically enumerated, including bullying of state and local governments in matters ranging from voter identification (ID) laws to immigration, from healthcare programs to land use decisions, and from forced education curricula to school restroom policies. We pledge to restore the proper balance and vertical separation of powers between the federal government and state governments — the governments closest to, and most reflective of, the American people. We encourage states to reinvigorate their traditional role as the laboratories of democracy, propelling the nation forward through local and state innovation.

Big government undermines federalism through more than 1,100 grants-in-aid programs that consume more than one-sixth of the federal budget for matters that should be the exclusive responsibility of the states. Through these programs, money originating from state taxpayers is returned to the states, usually greatly reduced, with myriad strings attached. These grants turn state and local elected officials into agents of the federal government. The web of conditions and regulations — especially the requirement of matching funds that comes with federal grants — transforms recipients into appendages of the Washington bureaucracy.

We call upon Congress to help a Republican president to reduce and ultimately eliminate this system of conditioned grants so that state and local taxpayers can decide for themselves what is best for their own communities.^[6]

”

—2016 Republican Party Platform^[7]

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Footnotes

↑ Indiana.gov, "Governor Pence Signs Religious Freedom Restoration Act Clarification Bill; Pence: 'Resolving this controversy, making clear that every person feels welcome and respected in our state is best for IN,'" accessed April 16, 2015
↑ Congress.gov, "H.R.822," accessed April 2, 2015
↑ Congress.gov, "S.397," accessed April 2, 2015
↑ MikePence.com, "Governor Pence CPAC Speech," accessed April 1, 2015
↑ ^5.0 ^5.1 Breitbart, "Mike Pence Hints at 2016 Run, Talking Federalism and Major Reforms," June 21, 2014
↑ Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source.
↑ Republican Party, "The 2016 Republican Party Platform," accessed August 23, 2016

[1] Indiana.gov, "Governor Pence Signs Religious Freedom Restoration Act Clarification Bill; Pence: 'Resolving this controversy, making clear that every person feels welcome and respected in our state is best for IN,'" accessed April 16, 2015

[2] Congress.gov, "H.R.822," accessed April 2, 2015

[3] Congress.gov, "S.397," accessed April 2, 2015

[cpac2015-4] MikePence.com, "Governor Pence CPAC Speech," accessed April 1, 2015

[fed-5] 5.0 ^5.1 Breitbart, "Mike Pence Hints at 2016 Run, Talking Federalism and Major Reforms," June 21, 2014

[quotedisclaimer-6] Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source.

[7] Republican Party, "The 2016 Republican Party Platform," accessed August 23, 2016

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Mike Pence vice presidential campaign, 2016/Constitution

Contents

Pence on Constitutional rights

First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution

Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution

Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution

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